The ability to express thought in language, to communicate, and to rapidly understand who did what to whom is a highly complex cognitive skill and ultimately the cognitive trait that defines us as being human. For the most part, language comprehension runs very smoothly and people perform it extremely quickly and efficiently. One might think this is nothing exceptional, were it not for the fact that everyday speech contains plenty of ambiguities, speech errors, and otherwise conflicting or interfering information. Similar to any other cognitive system, the language system is fitted out with mechanisms that detect conflicts and trigger compensating adjustments ‘on-the-fly’ in order to make sense of what has been said. Inevitably, language comprehension requires a combination of automatic and controlled processes and, depending on the context, we engage in both to varying degrees. Historically, linguistic conflict resolution has been investigated regarding to what extent linguistic modules such as ‘syntax’ and ‘semantics’ contribute to the process. In this thesis I take a step away from the traditional approach towards the question how the mechanisms underlying linguistic conflict resolution fit into domain-general cognition. It has been shown that controlled processing reliably results in activation of large-scale networks throughout the cortex. Importantly, neuroimaging studies have shown that the crucial brain region that enables us to flexibly make adjustments is the prefrontal cortex (PFC). In this thesis I present four case studies that investigated brain oscillations (as recorded in the EEG and MEG signal) in the time-frequency- (TFR), amplitude-time- (ERP), and source domain to determine how the language system relates to general executive functions. The materials employed structures that are amongst the most well-studied in psycholinguistic research: locally ambiguous garden-path sentences (e.g. “The nurse examined by the doctor was not on duty”), gender-agreement mismatches in anaphora and cataphora (e.g.“The king left London after reminding himself/herself about the letter”/ “After reminding himself/herself about the letter, the king left London.”), and syntactically complex garden-path sentences (“The receptionist realized that the nurse examined by the doctor was not on duty.”).The results in this thesis support the notion that there is indeed a connection between the language system and general executive functions during linguistic conflict resolution. Still, there are also situations where specialized ‘modules’ perform conflict resolution in a highly automatised fashion, particularly when contextual information sufficiently cues future input. However, as soon as increased uncertainty comes into play or capacity limits are reached, the brain appears to rely on extremely flexible mechanisms in prefrontal cortex regions.

Archwilia’r traethawd hwn rai o’r problemau a wynebir wrth hyrwyddo iaith fechan, gan ddefnyddio’r Gymraeg yn brif enghraifft. Amlinella’r bennod gyntaf effaith negyddol unffurfrwydd monolithig y wladwriaeth-genedl ar amlieithrwydd, gan ei wrthwynebu ar y sail y gall medru sawl iaith wella hyblygrwydd meddwl a pherthnasau rhwng gwahanol grwpiau. Yn yr ail bennod cyflwynir damcaniaeth cymdeithaseg iaith a chynllunio ieithyddol ac amlinellir yr hyn y gallai disgyblaeth marchnata ei wneud i newid agweddau ac ymddygiad o blaid dwyieithrwydd. Ym mhennod 3 cyflwynir canlyniadau ymchwil a wnaed ar 219 o breswylwyr Dyffryn Teifi, ardal a chanddi ddwysedd siaradwyr Cymraeg uchel. Archwilir sawl agwedd ar yr iaith, e.e. defnydd iaith, dyheadau siaradwyr at y dyfodol, mesurau cynllunio ieithyddol a phroblemau a photensial grðp ail iaith cynyddol yr ardal. Ym mhennod 4 cymherir agweddau 324 o unigolion tuag at yr iaith, traean ohonynt yn ddisgyblion chweched dosbarth mewn ysgolion Cymraeg, traean arall yn ddisgyblion uniaith Saesneg a thraean yn ddysgwyr. Cyflwynir eu hatebion i restr gyffredin o gwestiynau parthed defnyddioldeb y Gymraeg, hunaniaeth genedlaethol a mesurau cynllunio ieithyddol. Pwysleisir pa mor bwysig yw siaradwyr ail iaith a’r rhai di-Gymraeg wrth geisio goresgyn y rhwystrau i sefyllfa ieithyddol wedi ei ‘normaleiddio’. Ym mhennod olaf y traethawd dadansoddir rhwystr arall i ddwyieithrwydd, sef y methiant anferth i gynhyrchu siaradwyr newydd, rhugl o oedolion. Cynigir mai methodoleg hen ffasiwn sydd ar fai am hyn a chynigir cyrchddulliau ‘ymennydd gyfeillgar’ i gymryd eu lle. Archwilir un o’r rhain, Suggestopedia, yn fanwl, a chesglir ei fod o leiaf mor effeithiol â chyrchddulliau eraill ac, o bosib, yn fwy effeithiol o dipyn. Cloir y traethawd drwy bwysleisio mai dim ond trwy gynllunio’n strategol wrth ystyried anghenion siaradwyr newydd o oedolion y goresgynnir y rhwystrau ar lwybr dwyieithrwydd

This thesis traces the history of the teaching of English within the state system of education in the nineteenth century through the twentieth century and the writing of a national curriculum. More specifically, it traces definitions of language upon which its teaching has been based and the theories that have informed that teaching. This history is located within the wider social context of its formation. It contends that the teaching of English within a national State system of education was made possible by the standardisation of English as the language of the newly formed nation state. Teaching English, therefore, is primarily concerned with teaching language and through the texts it uses with teaching particular versions of society. It is divided into two parts. The first part considers formations of English and definitions of language from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the nineteen eighties. It describes the language theory that informed the teaching of language and their change from a prescriptive to descriptive basis. The second part of the thesis considers in more detail the writing of a national curriculum for English and the theories of language upon which the original curriculum and subsequent revisions drew. It ends by proposing a formation of English informed by contemporary language theory and the subject of stylistics centred upon the writing and study of 'text' as defined by the printed word.

This project is an effort to explore the kinetic aspects of Wordsworth's works on the one hand and scale up cognitive grammar (Langacker, 2008; Talmy, 2000a, 2000b) to literary discourse on the other hand, both of which stand as relatively underdeveloped areas in a cognitive approach to literature. Specifically, I focus on the kinetic and kinaesthetic notions of motion, force and energy expounded in cognitive grammar, mainly, fictive motion, force dynamics and energy chains, addressing issues not only related to kinetic representation in literary texts but also its possible effects upon readers. With the English Romantic poet Wordsworth as the case study, I conduct detailed cognitive poetic analyses of selected poems, mainly informed by some cognitive grammatical constructs, to reveal the 'invisible' meaning of the text (Langacker, 1993). I outline a cognitive aesthetics of motion by drawing on findings from cognitive science, cognitive grammar and aesthetic theory. Based on this account, I conduct a systematic examination of the fictive motion and fictive stationariness in Wordsworth's works as regards their literary representation and poetic effects. Particularly this reveals how Wordsworth instils fictivity, dynamicity and subjectivity in the literary representation of nature. I relate this manner of describing nature to the picturesque tradition, which is closely associated with a static representation of nature originating in the eighteenth century. I present my analysis as evidence of Wordsworth's attempt to transcend this tradition. With respect to force, I link the notions of force dynamics, texture and poetic tension (Tate, 1948), arguing that force dynamics on the one hand constitutes one important dimension of texture and on the other hand is the conceptual core of poetic tension. I then apply the force-dynamic model to demonstrate how a force-dynamic view could illuminate the differing texture of two poems by Wordsworth. My analysis of the two poems helps account for their differing conceptual complexity and also their contrasting popularity among literary critics. In the case of energy, I draw on Langacker's action chain model, which proposes an energy flow across clauses. I scale the model up to the discourse level and then develop an energetic reading of Wordsworth, examining how energy is represented in another two poems by Wordsworth. This thesis sets out to be a significant work in both cognitive poetics and critical studies of Wordsworth. In the field of cognitive poetics, it is a timely response to redress the imbalance between a majority of macro-level analyses and a minority of close stylistic analyses, and to answer a growing call for returning the focus back to the textuality and texture of the text. The frameworks I have drawn on are not limited to the appreciation of Wordsworth or nature poetry; they can be fruitfully applied to other poets and other types of poetry.

The problem of authorship attribution has received attention both in the academic world (e.g. did Shakespeare or Marlowe write Edward III?) and outside (e.g. is this confession really the words of the accused or was it made up by someone else?). Previous studies by statisticians and literary scholars have sought "verbal habits" that characterize particular authors consistently. By and large, this has meant looking for distinctive rates of usage of specific marker words -- as in the classic study by Mosteller and Wallace of the Federalist Papers. The present study is based on the premiss that authorship attribution is just one type of text classification and that advances in this area can be made by applying and adapting techniques from the field of machine learning. Five different trainable text-classification systems are described, which differ from current stylometric practice in a number of ways, in particular by using a wider variety of marker patterns than customary and by seeking such markers automatically, without being told what to look for. A comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of these systems, when tested on a representative range of text-classification problems, confirms the importance of paying more attention than usual to alternative methods of representing distinctive differences between types of text. The thesis concludes with suggestions on how to make further progress towards the goal of a fully automatic, trainable text-classification system.

Due to economic and political changes in Poland the market for educational services has changed. A worldwide trend for an early start in foreign language (FL) instruction is reflected in the accelerated growth of numbers of younger children enrolled into various forms of FL learning in Poland. Recent changes in the new National Curriculum introduced the possibility of starting FL learning from the first grade of the elementary school. However, it seems that teacher training has not yet responded to the growing demand for qualified FL teachers of young learners (FLTYL). This study presents the results of an evaluation of how the present TT provision meets the educational needs of teachers involved in teaching FL to young children and what changes should be made in order to address those needs in a better way. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to elicit information from different perspectives: current FLTYLs, prospective Early Years (EY) and FL teachers, and academic staff from the Higher Pedagogical School of Bydgoszcz, one of the institutions providing teacher training in Poland. Moreover, the findings were supported with the results of the surveys among the elementary and language school head teachers and parents of children from grades 1-3, which assessed the current and future needs in the area of FL teaching to young children. The research findings suggest that the present TT is flawed in at least two aspects. First of all, it seems not to recognise how widespread early FL instruction has become and consequently fails to respond to a growing demand for a higher number of qualified FLTYLs. Secondly, neither FL teacher training nor Early Years Education teacher training appears to equip the teachers with the necessary competencies and qualifications. The two basic problems of acceptance and implementation of a new FLTYL training programme, or modifying the existing provision, are shortage of qualified teacher trainers and insufficient cooperation between the departments that traditionally work separately. As a result, arriving at a common policy regarding optimal FLTYL qualifications and competencies, course organisation, its content, and training methods to be used, is problematic. The study offers some solutions as to how the existing impasse might be overcome.

The overarching discipline of the study is the sociolinguistics of law in which the analytical methods of discourse, genre and narrative analysis are brought together in the enterprise of describing language in its social context. The issues addressed in this study relate to communication processes in a court of law in Gaborone, Botswana. These have been identified as issues relating to the various stages of the trial process that some writers have labelled sub-genres of the courtroom genre and some have simply labelled discourses. The process typical to the Botswana courtroom are the administrative processes of Mentions Reading of Charge Sheets and Readings of Facts and the substantive processes of Direct and Cross Examinations, Submissions and Judgements. The study also includes the description of the bilingual nature of the Botswana courtroom including code switching and courtroom interpreting. The views and awareness of the legal practitioners - police prosecutors and lawyers - on and of the uses of language in the courtroom were sought and tested by a short questionnaire. These are cross-referred with observations and recordings of the court's proceedings with the aim of revealing the nature of bilingualism in this court. Many studies have described and critique different aspects of the trial such as courtroom questioning and jury summations, but few have attempted to describe the trial as a whole as this study has done. This broad focus has enabled the perception of the trial as a site for interlocking discourses, which together bring about the outcomes of trials. It has found out, for example, that while some processes are, ordinarily, unacceptably coercive of witness, like cross examinations, some are empowering, for instance, direct examinations. In which witnesses are allowed longer turns at talk where they give narrative accounts. The data comprises forty hour of recordings transcribed into texts comprising several examples of each of the stages of the trial.

This is a descriptive study of Chang Nam Fung's Chinese translation of Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay's Yes Prime Minister, a text characterized by British political humour. Adopting a target-oriented approach, it aims primarily to uncover the regularities which mark the relationships between function, process and product of the translated text, thus adding to the limited inventory of case studies in the field. Targeted mainly towards readers in mainland China, the translation was done at a time (1987-1992) when the political scene in the People's Republic went through cycles of repression and relaxation in the face of a democratic movement, while the translation tradition remained one that upheld the primacy of the original -- a poetics that is determined by the ideological concept of loyalty. Working under the constraints of the ideological and poetological norms dominant in China, the translator nevertheless wished to produce a text with artistic value and a potential to function as a political satire in the Chinese context, posing a challenge to those norms. This skopos has determined the use of manipulative strategies in the translation process, The translation product is thus found to have been overdetermined by the interplay of a large number of factors besides the source text: socio-political conditions, literary and translation traditions, and the translator's poetics and ideology. Finally, the findings are brought to bear on a number of translation theories, especially Polysystem theory and other cultural theories of translation in whose frameworks the study has been carried out. An augmented version of the polysystem hypothesis is proposed, the gist of which is that the political and the ideological polysystems, each consisting of competing systems, normally assume central positions in the macro-polysystem of culture, issuing norms that influence norms originating from other polysystems, and that translation activities are governed by norms originating from various polysystems. It is hoped that this tentative 'macro-polysystem hypothesis, after refinement by theorists and test by researchers, can better accommodate investigations into the role of the translator together with other socio-cultural factors involved in translation, especially the power relations.

This thesis examines the bilingualism of nine families of Pakistani origin living in England, to gain an understanding of their experience of living through a period of rapid intergenerational language change. The families are all linked to the medical profession and the second generation are educationally successful. The study aims to gain insights into the social and linguistic processes of language shift. It also aims to contribute to understanding of the position of successful ethnic minority young people. Qualitative research methods are used, including interviews and participant observation and analysis of data is interpretive. A corpus of language use is analysed, focusing on intergenerational interaction and code-switching. Discussion of educational issues draws on policy documents. The fIrst three chapters constitute the preliminary section of the thesis. They present the research group, the social, linguistic and educational contexts, a theoretical framework and a critical description of the methodological evolution of the study. Chapters four to nine are data-based and focus on different aspects of the families' bilingualism. Accounts of early language nurture are analysed; bilingual skills and repertoires are investigated and the relationship between linguistic and cultural continuity is explored. A study of in-family bilingual interaction is presented and language education policy and its relevance to family concerns is considered. The study draws coherence from recurring themes, and insights into the experience of transitional bilingualism. Concern for educational success emerges strongly. The different signifIcance of using the minority languages inside the family and outside is revealed and the importance of long-term developments and cultural continuity is clear. Language education policies do not always reflect the priorities of the families. The linguistic situation of the families is very unstable but individuals may well take up very different intellectual positions in relation to their linguistic future.

This thesis examines the relationship between language and social reality. The position argued for is one which sees language as having a constitutive role to play in the formation and maintenance of the social world. It elaborates and develops a view expressed by Quentin Skinner, namely, that language and the social world are mutually supportive and exist in a state of dynamic interaction. Because language has this constitutive role in relation to the social world attention to the use of language is important for the language we employ will be a significant factor in determining the nature of that world. The notion of ideology is defined in a critical sense as 'malign decontestation', i. e., the presentation of that which is contestable as if there were only one legitimate perspective. The concepts of absolutism and universalisation are taken as key ideological markers. Given the constitutive role of language, the identification of ideological language becomes important because aspects of the social world which are informed by such a language will reflect the errors inherent in the linguistic structures themselves. One of the central arguments of the thesis is that ideological language often arises when insufficient attention is paid to the ontological differences between activities whose subject matter is the natural world and those whose subject matter is the social world. There is a focus on educational issues because the impetus for this thesis arose out of a growing unease with the nature of the language used in relation to this topic. Although a concern with the language of education is not uncommon, the full significance of the language we use in this area is often unacknowledged because the necessary theoretical background is absent. It is the main purpose of this thesis to provide a philosophical justification for this concern.